How Many Bitcoins Are Left Today? All Stats & What’s Still to be Mined

Down below you will find data on how many Bitcoins are left and other fun stats.

How Much Bitcoin Is In Circulation?

Currently, the circulating number of bitcoins amounts up to 18,491,987.0 This number is updated six times per hour (every ten minutes) when a new block is mined on the Bitcoin blockchain. 

At the moment of writing, each new block produces 12.5 bitcoins, which are awarded to the last person to confirm a transaction. 

Additionally, it’s important to remember that every four years, Bitcoin undergoes a halving event, which reduces the supply flow of newly minted Bitcoin. 

The next halving is set to occur in May 2020. When that happens, mining rewards will be reduced to 6.25 BTC per block, increasing Bitcoin’s scarcity and thus, each coin’s value.

How many Bitcoin exist?

Bitcoin is set, by design, to have a maximum supply of 21.000.000 coins. This means that there is a limited amount of Bitcoin and there is no possibility to increase this number in the future.

How Many Bitcoin Have Been Mined?

So, how many Bitcoin are left to be mined? As of today, the number sits at 2,868.0 bitcoins and it is expected that all coins will be in circulation by the year 2140.

How Many Bitcoins Are Mined on a daily basis?

Currently, on a day to day basis, the nodes of the Bitcoin network confirm approximately 144 blocks, each of them rewarding miners with 12.5 newly minted coins. 

With a few simple calculations, we find that the total amount of new Bitcoin mined each day amounts to 1,800 coins (144 x 12.5). These rewards, however, as mentioned above, will be cut in half in May 2020, when the next halving happens.

Additionally, there is one more thing to keep in mind. Miners have been increasing the hash rates of their hardware in the last few years, which means that the block intervals are often set at 9.5 minutes instead of 10. This expedited mining time often leads to more than 1800 Bitcoin being created on a daily basis.

How Many Bitcoin Blocks Are There Today?

As of today, there are a total of 648,718 mined blocks.

When will all Bitcoins be mined?

At the current rate (block reward of 50 BTC halving every four years) the last bitcoin will be mined around the year 2136. Around that point, the reward will halve to a point where the block reward will be less than 1E-8 BTC, which is the lowest denomination of bitcoin (satoshi) so there is some doubt about how miners will be incentivized to keep mining. On top of that, by then there should be a much faster way to mine BTC than at the moment.

How Many Bitcoins Does Satoshi Have?

Based on the information that can be found in the Genesis Block (the first-ever transaction block), it is estimated that Satoshi Nakamoto holds approximately 1.000.000 Bitcoins. 

These coins are all derived from blocks which are transactions signed by Satoshi himself and are funds that have never been moved from their wallet since the day they were first mined. 

Considering that Bitcoin’s creator would have access to the coins, he would own more than 5% of the total amount of Bitcoins in existence.

How Many Bitcoin Have Been Stolen?

We hear this all the time. Cyber attacks on Bitcoin exchanges and hackers running away with more Bitcoin than they could ever spend. The truth is, similar to the number of lost coins, no one has an exact estimate of how many coins have been stolen.

As such, it might be worth mentioning some of the biggest hacks in the history of Bitcoin:

• The first and most famous Bitcoin theft involves the exchange of Mt. Gox. In total, there was more than 850.000 Bitcoin stolen and there is still an ongoing investigation to retrieve and refund the coins to the members of the platform.
• Another 120.000 Bitcoin was stolen from Bitfinex in 2016, one year before the popularity explosion that the digital currency experienced during the latest bull market.

Together, these coins amount to 970,000 stolen BTC that are still in circulation and controlled by the criminals that acquired them.

How Many Bitcoin Miners Are There?

As far as we know, popular Bitcoin mining pool Slushpool has approximately 200,000 active Bitcoin miners. These miners form 12% of the network’s total hash rate. 

Based on these numbers we can estimate that there are more or less 1,000,000 people that are mining Bitcoin, whether individually or in a pool.

What Happens When All 21 Million Bitcoins Are Mined?

At the current moment, Bitcoin miners receive their incentives mostly through the block rewards. However, when all 21.000.000 Bitcoin have been mined, this will change, as there will no longer be a Bitcoin reward for miners that solve the last transaction on the block.

As such, when all coins have been mined, Bitcoin miners will be paid from the transaction fees of the whole block.

How Many Bitcoins Will Be Mined Before The Next Halving?

The third Bitcoin halving will occur in May 2020. This means that there are approximately 276,075 BTC left to be mined before the rewards get reduced by half.

Is Bitcoin Issuance Similar to Gold?

The issuance of Gold has many similarities to that of Bitcoin. The supply of the precious metal has historically increased by around 2% each year. 

Similarly, Bitcoin’s supply will increase at the same pace after the next halving (even less than 2%). 

Bitcoin, however, has a benefit in this case. While Gold is known to have a limited supply, no one really knows the exact number, or how the issuance will look like in the coming years. With Bitcoin, the opposite is true. 

The issuance percentage will keep dropping with each reward halving, which occurs every four years. As time closes the gap between the two assets, it will eventually become obvious that Bitcoin is more scarce and, thus, better to invest in for the long term.

Written by

Dimitris Tsapis

Dimitris writes content related to the Blockchain and cryptocurrencies but also on topics related to digital marketing.